Biotransformation of Chinese Herbs and Their Ingredients

Abstract

Biotransformation has been extensively applied in herbal fermentation processing, metabolism study of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), structural modification and synthesis of active components of TCM. Selecting steroidal saponins as the subject, the selective hydrolysis of glycosyl residues, glycosylation of molecules, and the modification of their aglycone were systematically studied by biotechnology in this work. Some active microorganisms were screened, several specific enzymes were purified, and their substrate specificities and transformed regularities were summarized. These results lay a better foundation for determining the key core of the active components, specifically modifying their structures, constructing the focused library with the structural diversity, and manufacturing some new drug candidates which are rare in herbs. They may also provide a kind of valuable strategy and approach support for herbal substance library construction as well as the active ingredients research of Herbalome Project.